


Blue Moon

by flashindie



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, GGPAT2020 | Good Girls Prompt-a-thon 2020, GGWeek2020, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:14:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25668790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashindie/pseuds/flashindie
Summary: “Oh, you’re planning a beach wedding now?” Ruby asks with a grin, the thing only faltering when the doors open again but - - no. Just a nurse, brandishing her clipboard. Still no Dean. Typical.Beth hums, like she hadn’t even noticed, looking back at Ruby, her blue eyes bright, and there’s something that feels like Beth in it again, something warm, impish, as she wrinkles her nose, considering, and Ruby can’t help it, the way it feels like a key that unlocks her.- 10 times Ruby dances fic.
Relationships: Ruby Hill/Stan Hill
Comments: 17
Kudos: 33
Collections: Good Girls Prompt-a-thon 2020





	Blue Moon

**Author's Note:**

> An incredibly belated entry for the Good Girls Prompt-a-thon! The prompt was:
> 
> 5 times type thing of ruby dancing, something like when she was little with her family, at prom with stan and beth, her and stan’s first dance as a married couple, her and stan with the kids, the girls celebrating a big win, something like that.
> 
> I also made a playlist for it, haha. You can listen to it [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5r2Ipo4cEXaauF4QIYlJEt?si=DtM5VWKVQfahAwjtM6TOpQ).

I

The piano music stutters out of the record player, and her father starts to move.

It’s an awkward sort of box step to start with – sideways, forwards, sideways, back – his feet shuffling on the tired carpet of their living room and it’s enough to make Ruby hang off the back of the sofa, crinkling her nose in some combination of delight and embarrassment. The mix must be clean on her face too, because when he sees it, halfway through his routine, her father’s face breaks.

A grin.

A wink.

Then a step, step, turn.

“ _Daaad_ ,” Ruby groans, falling forwards as she giggles, but he doesn’t stop for her, not yet, just starts to sing along as Billie Holiday’s voice croons out of the tinny speakers in the corner. He turns again, and then again, lowering a hand to an imaginary waist before holding his other out to the side, entwining it with a set of imaginary fingers.

It’s not long then until his hips start to sway, the motion gentle, at least, it is until his dance puts him in the path of her mother, who’s resting against the doorway separating the living room from the kitchen, a cigarette dangling between her fingers, and her gaze warm and steady. When he spots her, he wriggles his hips and waggles his eyebrows.

Her mother’s own eyebrows spring up her forehead. She gestures to herself with her cigarette – like _who, me?_ – and her father only laughs, stepping a little closer. He stops though when her mother shakes her head, serious this time.

“ _No_ , Harry,” she tells him, and he widens his eyes dramatically, jerks his head back in the direction of the record player.

“Oh, you want me to change the song?”

His deep voice thrums out into the living room, a brilliant, rich tenor and Ruby had loved it even then.

(God, she misses his voice). 

“More like change the dance partner,” her mother hums, and her father laughs, but stifles it quickly, raises his hand to his chest in faux injury instead.

“That’s cold.”

“I have been on my feet _all_ day, Harry.”

“And I haven’t?”

Her mother’s face softens with affection, her smile back – her willpower weakened, always, with Ruby’s father. She takes a slow drag on her cigarette, eyes dancing over his form as his feet keep stepping.

“You, my love, seem to be tapped into somethin’ the rest of us aren’t. All that energy. It’s not right.”

Waving a hand at her in a wordless _bah_ , Harry turns again, his feet making quick work of moving him back into the swing of his dance. Somewhere upstairs, Ruby can hear the sound of her brother holding up the phone, talking to his girlfriend, knows her other brother is working on his homework on the patio. Knows the neighbour is out there in the nearest distance, arguing with her own husband, but right now, watching the evening light shift through the living room window, warming her father’s back, it doesn’t feel like there’s anyone else in the world.

_Maybe there isn’t_ , she thinks, flushing when her father smiles bright at her.

“Maybe _I’ll_ change the dance partner instead,” he calls back at her mother, promptly holding his hands out to Ruby, who’s flush deepens tenfold as she furiously shakes her head, flopping back down onto the couch.

“Noooo.”

“You don’t want to dance with your old man?”

She shakes her head, and her father laughs.

“Come on, Ruby. You can stand on my feet. You won’t even know you’re doing it.”

Glancing back up at him, at her father’s warm, inviting face, Ruby’s gaze flicks back to her mother, still in the doorway, her own face bright too, encouraging, and well, okay, Ruby thinks, biting her lip.

Slipping off the couch, she takes her father’s hand.

II

“You should talk to her.”

The words only make Ruby shake her head, shuffle a little on the spot as she tears another line in the rim of her paper cup. Beside her, Beth sighs, her shoulders pushed back into the wall, her own body swaying a little to the quiet music that leaks out of Ruby’s father’s speakers.

Are they still his?

( _Of course they are_ , Ruby reminds herself, just like all his records are still his, his plate that her mother had accidentally put out at breakfast; his shoes, that her brother had forgotten not to polish before church on Sunday.)

Ruby swallows, looks up at her mother on the other side of the kitchen, still organising platters of food for the family, friends, congregation that takes up every inch of their house – all dressed in mourner’s black, unchanged from the morning’s funeral. Her mother’s hands don’t shake, her eyes have yet to water, and something in Ruby twists as she looks away, back towards Beth, who’s only watching her carefully, openly, honestly in reply. And Ruby gets it, figures she’d even be doing the same, but right now - -

With _this_ \- - 

(Somewhere behind them, she feels the weight of her mother’s gaze, she feels her brothers’ absence, feels her father’s smile in every sound, breath, smell of this house).

“I want to go outside,” Ruby says, and Beth opens her mouth to say something, but promptly closes it again, nodding instead and offering Ruby her hand.

So it’s not until later, when the food is packed away and the mourners gone, not until Ruby’s brothers are in bed, until Ruby is, when she hears Billie Holiday croon her way up the staircase, that she gets up again herself. She’s quiet as she slips out of bed, tiptoeing down the hall, down the steps in time to see her mother standing alone in the middle of the living room, her nice, new dress stained and crinkled, her feet shuffling, her shoulders pushing back.

She makes a small, neat circle around the space, before she pauses, right in the middle.

It’s only then that her mother raises a trembling hand into the air, that she entwines it with a set of imaginary fingers, before gripping them tight.

Her head hangs forwards, resting on an imaginary shoulder.

Her hips sway, a low warble sounds from her throat, and she tries to keep it low, hide it beneath the music, but all the same, Ruby’s own breath hitches when her mother’s does.

She doesn’t close the distance.

She doesn’t know how.

III

Still doesn’t.

Apparently.

“I’m really, really sorry,” Ruby groans, and she _knows_ she just stepped on his foot. Not just anyone’s foot. A foot belonging to none other than Stanley Lamont Hill.

The colour rushes up her neck, fills her cheeks, and she must look like a fire hydrant or _something_ , but Stan just laughs, shuffles back a little, his own cheeks flushed.

“No, no, no, don’t be sorry,” he tells her. “I’m not any good either.”

Which - - _god_ , Ruby thinks, twisting her neck, trying to slow her fast-beating heart, scanning the gymnasium for what feels like the millionth time for any sign of Beth. She’s _sure_ it’s a pity dance. Sure Stan saw her mom drop her off on her own, saw her stand for way too long by the door, checking the clock every three minutes, because Beth had promised to meet her out front, even if she _was_ coming with Dean Boland. Beth even knew Ruby had saved all her birthday money up to buy that polaroid camera, that stack of film. Knew that tonight was supposed to be - -

Ruby doesn’t even know what it was supposed to be.

The sound of Mariah Carey power-ballading her way through the moment echoes in Ruby’s head, and her gaze flicks back up to Stan, and she means to tell him _sorry_ again, that he doesn’t have to, that she’s not a pity project or what _ever_ , but - -

But he’s just staring at her, wide eyed, in his powder blue suit, his shoulders broad and his face kind, sure, but also a little more than kind, a little more - - _something_. Ruby swallows, and Stan steps forwards again.

He raises shaky hands, his eyes trained on her face as he shuffles a little closer, looking at her, always, like making sure she’s alright with it all, and something in her warms, something in her opens, something in her unravels.

And the moment his hands find her hips, she feels it everywhere.

“Is this okay?” Stan whispers, and it’s all Ruby can do to nod sharply, her own hands jerking awkwardly up to hold those broad shoulders of his and he shivers in a way that makes her think maybe he feels it too.

IV

There’s a light on in the Marks’ house.

Something bright in the thick, dark night, and Ruby thinks:

Annie’s room.

She thinks:

Not the main light. The lamp by Annie’s bed.

Which means Beth’s there, she knows, not Lori.

It means Beth’s keeping watch while she studies, reads, pretends she’s supposed to be here, that she wants to be, instead of dancing with Dean Boland in the school gymnasium, and okay, Ruby thinks, steeling herself.

Okay.

The front door is locked, but the back isn’t, and even if it was, it wouldn’t matter, because Ruby has a key, and she steals up the staircase and she doesn’t stop until she finds Beth, sitting on the floor of her sister’s bedroom in her junior prom dress, a stain on the thigh of it and the rancid smell of vomit in the air.

“ _You’re_ supposed to be at the dance.”

One of them says it, or maybe both.

Ruby doesn’t know.

So the moment sits, unanswered, and Ruby lets her gaze wander, lets it latch onto Annie’s tiny body, curled up in bed, her hair matted with sweat and her eyes shut, her mouth open. Panting.

Lets it find Beth again, barefoot but otherwise dressed for the dance. Her hair curled, her cheeks flushed, her eyes tired, always, because there’s nothing Beth is better at than letting people wear her down.

And Ruby wants to tell her about Stan, who had dropped her here, who had kissed her after he’d opened the car door for her, who had smelled of bad cologne and teenage boy, but beneath it, of something sweet.

Something better than sweet.

Something _good_.

But she watches Beth get up, avoid her gaze, grab a wet cloth from the nightstand and press it to Annie’s forehead, and she thinks of the half hour she spent waiting out front for her to show up, thinks about the fact that Beth didn’t find a way to tell her, thinks about Beth here, on her own, while Dean found some other girl to dance with, and instead she wants to tell her - -

“Why would I be there when you’re here?”

It’s so quick, the way Beth blinks up at her, glassy eyed, the tentative smileon her face digging the knife and healing the wound all at once, and it’s not fair, Ruby thinks, watching Beth reach out a hand for her.

It’s not fair, Ruby thinks again, when they steal back into Beth’s bedroom, and turn the radio on its lowest setting, when Beth buries her face in Ruby’s neck, like Ruby had Stan’s, and they dance barefoot against the carpet, the warmth of each other like something precious until the sounds of Annie retching pull Beth away again.

V

Now, it’s the sound of Aretha that pulls up through the speakers, and Ruby raises an eyebrow as her mother takes her hand.

“In the end, I guess I didn’t think either of us could do Billie,” she says wryly, and well, Ruby thinks, she’s not sure she’s wrong there.

It had been a thing, that’s all.

Working out the father-daughter dance for her wedding.

Stan had volunteered his own father (the man _was_ soon to be her in-law), and both her brothers had stepped up, but it had only felt right. Her mother was still here after all.

Her mother was still her mother

She could give her away, watery eyed, could give a wobbly speech, could promise Ruby she deserved Stan’s naked love, that the trust Ruby struggled to ever give was well-placed, that Stan was - - was - -

“He reminds me of your father,” her mother hums now, her fingers entangling with Ruby’s as they sway, and Ruby blinks, her eyes aching, but turns a joking look on her mother all the same.

“They do both look good in a suit,” she says. “And neither of them can dance.”

The community center they hired for their reception is small – a mess of crepe paper, blinking fairy lights, plastic cutlery, white tulle – but her mother’s scoff sounds loud, even above the music. Her face cracking into a grin, as she says: “Come on now. They both like to put their feet up, sure, but when they’re on the floor, they know what to do with them. Not like us.”

She gazes down pointedly at their own static feet, their bodies simply swaying where they stand, and Ruby laughs, holding her mother’s hand up, planting her other one at her waist.

“Is that a challenge?”

Her mother just laughs, and Ruby can’t quite bite back the grin.

So she steps them forwards, sideways, backwards, sideways, her father’s favourite box step that travels them across the floor, the sound of Aretha soaring over them, her hand tight in her mother’s, and she can hear Stan clap, yell, can hear Beth directing the videographer, knows if she looked she’d see her own brothers glassy eyed and Annie stealing snacks, and just - -

Just she remembers not being able to do this with her once.

The picture of her mother dancing alone, Ruby watching from the staircase, that fateful night at her father’s wake, and a bitter part of her looks at her mother and thinks _he should be doing this with me_ , and a better part of her looks at her mother and thinks _I’m glad it’s you_.

She crooks her neck forwards, bows it towards her mother, lets her eyes slip shut when she feels her hand against her cheek.

“Do you miss him?” she whispers, and her mother makes a noise that breaks right in the middle.

“Never stop.”

And Ruby guesses they aren’t alone in that either.

VI

“I’m hanging up,” Ruby says into her cell, rolling her eyes at Beth’s floundering on the other end of the line. “B, I’m serious, she’s walking out right now.”

“Well, is she okay?” Beth asks, nearly breathless with her own anticipation, and of course, Ruby thinks, rolling her eyes as she pushes off her car. “Y’know what? I’m just going to come.”

Which - -

_Of course_.

“ _You_ ,” Ruby tells her, “are going to stay exactly where you are. Remember how you’re on bedrest so that kid doesn’t bust out of you _Alien_ -style? The doctor said that you need to stay horizontal until you deliver, so guess what? You’re going to stay horizontal.”

She hears Beth huff over the line, hears Kenny cry in the background because Baby #1 doesn’t stop when you’re pregnant with Baby #2, but the truth of it is, Annie _is_ walking out of the lawyer’s office right now, her divorce finally settled, and god, Ruby thinks. She’s even wearing one of Beth’s floral blouses.

“Does she look okay at least?”

“She looks fine,” Ruby lies. “And I’m going to take care of her.”

She hangs up before Beth can even argue otherwise, and Ruby watches as Annie closes the distance between them, and it’s strange, how small she looks. Beth’s blouse gapes at her chest, is tucked awkwardly into her clean, but stained black slacks, and she can see it, in the back of her head, how Annie and Beth must’ve decided on it together. Decided that it was the way Annie looked most grown up, the most together, the most ready to be a single mother, but there’s no part of this that doesn’t make her look like a kid. 

“Hey,” Annie says after a moment, shrugging awkwardly, swiping at her red, swollen face, and the moment hangs only briefly, before Annie bridges the quiet. “Like, I know you’re my sister’s friend and not mine, and you’re only here to do Beth a favor or whatever, but like - - do you wanna get wasted?”

And really, Annie’s not wrong. Ruby _is_ here for Beth, not Annie, and she should say no because they both have kids at home and lives to live, but god, Annie looks so _sad_ , and against her better judgement, they end up at a bar at 11am, and they get a drink, and they get another, then another.

And at some point the hours start to bleed and the drinks start to blur and Ruby’s only ever known Annie as Beth’s little sister, but maybe today she learns she’s funny, and her heart’s a size too big, and maybe sometimes it’s hard to tell if she’s laughing or she’s crying, but she gets mad when Ruby brings up Dean, and sad when she brings up Greg, and wistful when she mentions Stan, and a few more drinks mean it’s too easy to let Annie drag her onto some sticky dance floor and it’s fun when Annie flail-dances and sweet when Annie pulls in closer, and it’s the most sweet of all when Annie lays her head against Ruby’s chest – like Beth had all those years ago – and maybe Ruby’s heart grows a size too when Annie’s wet, drunk mouth just says _thanks._

VII

“Okay,” Ruby says, twisting a little on the spot as she feels Sara’s gaze on them. “Are you ready?”

And the thing is, it just _does_ something to her, watching her daughter scoot as difficultly as she can to the edge of her hospital bed, her dark hair frizzing against the starched sheets, her smile unfairly bright.

“I’m ready,” Sara replies, and when she speaks, Ruby can see the tooth she lost last week – the one where the nurse got to play tooth fairy to instead of her, because dammit, this is where and what they are now.

“Oh, you better be, baby girl,” Stan says, bouncing a little on the spot, and it’s all it takes for Ruby to twist into him, to feel his presence beside her, his firmness, his _warmth,_ and okay, she thinks, just - -

Okay.

The speakers judder to life and the opening riff of _Push It_ start, and it’s like muscle memory, the way the steps find her – more than the steps, the lyrics too, and they’re barely through the first verse when Sara starts laughing, her face split, her chest heaving, and then she’s coughing, and Ruby springs forwards, but she’s stopped - - Stan _stops_ her - - reaching for her, pulling her back to him, and he just shakes his head, and it hurts as the nurses tumble into the room, then the doctors, watching from the sidelines as Sara coughs, blood spilling from the corners of her mouth, and then there are drugs and drips and one doctor pulls them out of the room and says the word _transplant_ and Ruby goes home and she hates herself, but Stan - -

He won’t let her.

“We made her sick,” Ruby says, tears in her eyes, and Stan shakes his head, twisting towards her in their bed.

“We made her _smile_.”

And he says it so openly, so honestly, and Ruby rolls over to face him, takes in his dark eyes, his handsome features, and something in him is still fifteen, telling her it’s okay to step on his toes. Something in him is a hundred, telling her - -

Telling her - -

“That doesn’t matter,” she insists, and Stan’s hand finds hers, entwining their fingers.

“That’s all that matters,” he promises her. “It’s all we can do.”

IX

“You have been watching _way_ too many old romances,” Beth tells her, amusement thick in her tone, and Ruby shrugs, rocking the baby carrier beside her when Danny starts to whine.

“Please, you’re the one who made us go see _Fiddler on the Roof_ three times at the Revival Theatre. If it wasn’t for that, I’d never even know about the whole matchmaker thing with your people.”

“ _My people,_ ” Beth scoffs, red creeping up her neck. “Besides, the whole point of _Fiddler on the Roof_ was that he had to learn how to let his daughters choose who they married. That they couldn’t just _arrange_ \- - _ah_.”

Beth exhales sharply, squirming back into her seat, hands balling, white knuckled at the arms of the chair, and she has to be close, Ruby thinks, dropping her hand to Beth’s back, rubbing soothing circles there as she tries to catch the attention of one of the nurses. They barely seem to even see them though amidst the crowded waiting room, beelining to patients with - - what even is that? A _rash_? Ruby side eyes the nurse taking the man out of the waiting room, before turning her attention back to Beth.

“What was that whole _do you love me_ song about then, huh?” Ruby says. “Him and his wife had been matched, and those two were _in it_ , y’know?”

“It’s generational. The parents do what they have to so the kids can have it better,” Beth insists, but she hasn’t opened her eyes yet, her eyelashes matted together, and Ruby sighs, sitting forwards as best she can with her own pregnant belly in the way. _New plan_ , Ruby tells herself. They are never pregnant at the same time again. One of them needs to run point, and she can’t send Stan out with Kenny and Sara forever.

“Where’s Dean?”

“I called Boland Motors,” Ruby promises. “He wasn’t at his desk, and honestly that new secretary of his is - -”

Well, Ruby thinks a little dryly.

She’s _something_.

Beth squirms back in her seat, panting a little now, and the contractions really are getting closer together, even if her waters haven’t broken yet. Maybe they’ll have to pop that bag for her – they had to do it with Danny after all – her gaze darts sideways to check on him in his stroller, but he’s fallen asleep again. 

“So, how do you wanna do it?” Ruby asks, keeping her tone light. “We gotta get this thing on paper.”

It’s enough to make Beth twist her neck sideways, to peel open her watery eyes in confusion, and Ruby waits until she has Beth’s full attention before she gestures down to her own swollen belly.

“Stan Junior here is gonna be a catch. I’m just saying. Beth Junior there might want to lock it down.”

Beth’s laugh is strangled between her breathlessness, the pain of her contractions, but god, it’s music to Ruby’s ears.

“Oh, Stan Junior will _definitely_ be a catch,” Beth agrees, the sweat curling her hair at her temples. The contraction seems to pass, and Beth smooths her own hand over her belly, still panting. “Lilies for the wedding?”

Ruby hums in approval, only to pause, squint a little below the bright glare of the hospital fluorescents.

“Wait. Do they get married at a church or a synagogue?”

“Neither,” Beth says, brushing her hair away from her face with a trembling hand, her eyes fixing briefly on Danny, sleeping in his stroller. “I feel like we should get a vacation out of it.”

“Oh, you’re planning a beach wedding now?” Ruby asks with a grin, the thing only faltering when the doors open again but - - no. Just a nurse, brandishing her clipboard. Still no Dean. Typical.

Beth hums, like she hadn’t even noticed, looking back at Ruby, her blue eyes bright, and there’s something that feels like Beth in it again, something warm, impish, as she wrinkles her nose, considering, and Ruby can’t help it, the way it feels like a key that unlocks her.

“White sand, the ocean,” Beth says. “We’d probably need to hire a marquee.”

“And a beach bar,” Ruby agrees, grinning a little when Beth rolls her eyes, waving a hand at her innocuously, before she says:

“Well, that goes without saying.”

And Ruby just laughs at that, sinking back briefly into her hard backed hospital chair (which is one-thousand percent not designed for anyone at all ever) before leaning forwards again, standing up two of her fingers like legs and walking them from one side of her belly to the other, over the arms of the chairs, and up the side of Beth’s twitching belly.

“Miss Boland, before you depart your mother, do you take this little man growing inside me to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

It really is magic, Ruby thinks again, the sound of Beth’s laugh. The real one she hears less and less often, the one that makes her throw her head back, her eyes crinkle, the sound a little low, a little husky, the one she knows Dean can never get out of her, and that at least feels like a truth. That Beth is still hers. That she’ll never lose her, not entirely, to Dean, no matter how many photo ops she goes to, no matter how many times she defers to him, no matter how much she dims her light to grow his.

Beth props her own fingers up then, mirroring Ruby’s action and walking them up over the swell of her own belly, meeting Ruby’s fingers in the middle.

“My daughter is running a little late, but I believe I have the permission to speak for her this evening,” Beth says gravely, lowering her voice. “And she says ‘I do’. Now, Mr. Hill, do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

“He does,” Ruby says, face split in two with a grin. She lets her eyes slip shut and her tone lower in faux-seriousness. “Finally, our two houses united.”

“Well, our husbands’ houses,” Beth says wryly, and Ruby tilts her head, conceding. 

“That’s true. I think ours have been united a lot longer than this.”

She smiles over at Beth affectionately, but it just - - it floors her, the look Beth gives her back. Her eyes wide open, suddenly wet again, pupils darting across Ruby’s face like she’s - - like she’s looking for the lie, and when she doesn’t see it, she tangles her fingers with Ruby’s, quick as she can, mumbling something about a first dance and holds Ruby’s hand tight to her belly, swaying a little – as if to hide the fact that maybe she just wanted to hold her.

To be held.

And Ruby holds her hand back all the tighter.

X

And the thing is it’s Stan who puts her cane aside and pulls her up as the music starts.

“Yeah, you remember that bit where I got shot in the leg, right?” she asks him, squinting, even as she lets him tug her to him, and god, he still smells like stripper perfume, like cheap booze and sticky floors (and how much of that is her fault? That he doesn’t smell like the station anymore?) but he doesn’t waver now that he’s back on his feet, that he has her back on hers, his hand still clutching hers (always), and Ruby just lets herself be pulled.

Because it really is too easy – to feel him there against her – and she wants to tell him she gets it, that she doesn’t love what they do either, that nothing in her has sought this out, none of her has wanted any of it more than she’s just wanted him, but maybe they both know that’s a lie. Ruby knows what – who – she wants, knows it’s a list, not a person, knows there’s not a world, a life, she’ll live without every one of them, but still. Her gaze flicks up to his.

He has to know how high on that list he is, right?

“It gets too hard, you can stand on my feet, boo,” he says, voice low and quiet. Small in the best way, like it’s an offering, and it’s impossible, the way that the memory bubbles to the surface. Fights to be heard, felt, seen, like a weed with deep roots, and she inhales, exhales, even as Stan guides her feet onto his.

“You sound like my father,” Ruby tells him, tone heavy with the joke, but the words are honest, and Stan hears them, always, because Stan hears her.

(Always).

“Well, I never met the man, but I’ve heard good things,” he hums, shifting his body to take her weight, and Ruby inhales, her hands finding Stan’s back, and her eyelashes flutter shut, her face guiding into Stan’s neck as he slowly, warmly, starts to dance with her.

And the thing is, Ruby has never been able to pinpoint a moment, a feeling, with Stan. Thinks too many of them are _it_ , but here – his breath in her hair, his feet beneath hers (holding her up), his hands at her hips, steady and true – his voice singing, offkey, to a song she loves – might be all of it. Might be her safest space, her warmest, the one she hangs her head.

(Heart.

Feet.

Chest.

Just - -

Every _inch_ of her _)._

And she’s mellow when she blinks her eyes back open, and stills, seeing Sara, holding a can of pop, her face shadowed, watching them in the dark from down the hall, and - -

_Huh_ , she thinks.

Huh.

Ruby rolls her shoulders back, fakes a yawn, says:

“I’m a little tired, babe” with a sigh.

And Stan looks briefly taken aback, he _does_ , before Ruby lets her eyes dart sideways, lets him see Sara, lurking, and Stan looks at her, his expression torn open with his love in a way that tears Ruby open too, and he hums, helping her back to the couch.

“That’s okay, baby,” he tells her, then adds: “Maybe I can find me another dance partner tonight.”

“I’m sure we have one in this house somewhere,” Ruby says, and Sara immediately blusters, flusters, waves a hand out, _sprung._

“No, I’m going to bed, I’m - - ”

I

“I’m not any good,” Ruby groans, her feet slipping off her father’s as he dances them backwards, and she hates it – the way embarrassment floods her chest, her cheeks.

Her father though only hums, low and pleasant, shifting his feet underneath just enough to catch her own.

“You wanna be a dancer?”

Which - - god, _no_ , she thinks, the idea of being on stage like that already putting her on edge, and she stares up at him, affronted, her hands scrambling against her father’s shirt.

“ _No_.”

“Well then it ain’t about being good, is it?” he replies easily, and Ruby blinks, her eyes wide, and maybe she holds onto his shirt a little tighter.

“See, for me, it’s about being happy. Dancing with your mother? That makes me happy,” he tells her, swaying them back as another Billie Holiday track starts. “Dancing with you? That makes me _real_ happy. That’s the thing about dancing with someone you love. You happy?”

He asks it honestly, openly, and Ruby looks up into his warm face, takes in the kind lines of it, the thick eyelashes, the way he smiles at her, smiling at him.

“Yeah,” she says, and her dad just hums again.

“Me too.”


End file.
